76
Feature requests / Re: Global Damage Multiplier in Custom Game Options
« on: 5 October 2016, 06:35:06 »
Yeah, the logic is super simple. Implementing it is a different story for those of us who aren't good coders. 
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77
Mods / Re: Editor for custom factions
« on: 30 August 2016, 09:57:38 »
This sounds really promising, and I'm ready to be done working with XML. 
But, what about the models?? I think I'm the only active 3D artist on the forums right now.. 
Also, are upgrades being handled? And what about particles?
A lot of the new MG XML stuff is in the docs.
https://docs.megaglest.org/XML/Faction
https://docs.megaglest.org/XML/Skills
https://docs.megaglest.org/XML/Unit
But, what about the models?? I think I'm the only active 3D artist on the forums right now.. Also, are upgrades being handled? And what about particles?
A lot of the new MG XML stuff is in the docs.
https://docs.megaglest.org/XML/Faction
https://docs.megaglest.org/XML/Skills
https://docs.megaglest.org/XML/Unit
78
Mods / Re: Speedglest!
« on: 28 August 2016, 18:08:34 »
I've got to say I've always found Glest games to be too short, and too focused on rushing. It's already practically impossible to have a game last more than an hour, because you run out of resources on the entire map. In AI vs AI balance testing for some of my work, I actually HAVE to increase the resource count so that I can actually get long enough games to measure balance, and see how late-game units handle.
That said, it's nice to see someone else working on the mod front.
That said, it's nice to see someone else working on the mod front.
79
Bug reports / Re: Is shadow mapping supposed to look this horrible?
« on: 28 August 2016, 18:02:46 »
The issue is also present on my GTX 960m and my GTX 1080...
80
Mods / Re: Re-Mastering the Egypt Faction (Beta Up 7/21)
« on: 25 August 2016, 08:33:29 »
Temple has been remodeled and retextured, with an optimized 30 frame wind animation for the new garden(replacing the second obelisk) and the new plant replacing the blocky bushes.
http://imgur.com/a/JZhg8
Snake also has a new selection plane underneath him, and teamcolor has been added.
http://imgur.com/a/JZhg8
Snake also has a new selection plane underneath him, and teamcolor has been added.
81
Feature requests / Re: My Idea Box
« on: 22 August 2016, 09:37:53 »
I've never played any of those strategy games, I find that virtually every "strategy" game is heavy on micro, which has absolutely nothing to do with strategy. I desire to play a strategy game that is more like real strategy, where you focus on actual strategy instead of tedious clicking just to keep your units from killing themselves. I just find it ludicrous that as things currently stand, you have to tell the worker to fix the building that's about to fall on him. It's also always a bit awkward when a soldier is standing there and doesn't respond as archers he can't see slowly fill him with arrows. The units are pretty much brain-dead.
Sorry for my little rant. My uniform selection idea was just a quick thought, as hopefully a way to spend less time assigning shortcuts.
Sorry for my little rant. My uniform selection idea was just a quick thought, as hopefully a way to spend less time assigning shortcuts.
82
Feature requests / Re: My Idea Box
« on: 22 August 2016, 02:53:01 »
Key bindings
Sounds interesting, but I don't think to many changes would be needed if units were to have a little more autonomy and act like actual soldiers would. Reducing the amount of useless clicks would allow for more actual gameplay and is certainly a complimentary approach to adding more key bindings. I'm speaking of many of the unit AI features GAE had with auto repair, auto return, and more.
Uniform Selection
I think this should happen automatically, buildings in the order they are built. Then production could happen at a much more rapid pace, in keeping with how the AI is able to operate.
Resource Buildings
Would love this. Perhaps have upgrades affect the speed as well, and have unit manning optional.
Militia
This might be more common in factions if we had AI tags for units. Non-combatant(cow), defender(militia units), military(guard), hero(General). AI tags or some similar approach would stop the AI from using these units so poorly.
Sounds interesting, but I don't think to many changes would be needed if units were to have a little more autonomy and act like actual soldiers would. Reducing the amount of useless clicks would allow for more actual gameplay and is certainly a complimentary approach to adding more key bindings. I'm speaking of many of the unit AI features GAE had with auto repair, auto return, and more.
Uniform Selection
I think this should happen automatically, buildings in the order they are built. Then production could happen at a much more rapid pace, in keeping with how the AI is able to operate.
Resource Buildings
Would love this. Perhaps have upgrades affect the speed as well, and have unit manning optional.
Militia
This might be more common in factions if we had AI tags for units. Non-combatant(cow), defender(militia units), military(guard), hero(General). AI tags or some similar approach would stop the AI from using these units so poorly.
84
Mods / Re: Re-Mastering the Egypt Faction (Beta Up 7/21)
« on: 10 August 2016, 05:37:56 »
Thanks John! 
Also, wanted to quickly share that I've reduced the triangle count of the Sphinx from ~3600 to just under 2400. Quality of the model isn't lowered much, and besides it's the texturing that looks the worst in my opinion.
I hope to release another beta in the next few weeks. Admittedly, I've been working on another Glest project since the release of this beta, mostly to wait for feedback on this.
I'm going to make some new updates and try to address the things you guys have brought up.
Totally unrelated Titi, but when do you think we might see another MG release?
Also, wanted to quickly share that I've reduced the triangle count of the Sphinx from ~3600 to just under 2400. Quality of the model isn't lowered much, and besides it's the texturing that looks the worst in my opinion.
(click to show/hide)
I hope to release another beta in the next few weeks. Admittedly, I've been working on another Glest project since the release of this beta, mostly to wait for feedback on this.
I'm going to make some new updates and try to address the things you guys have brought up.
Totally unrelated Titi, but when do you think we might see another MG release?
85
Mods / Re: Re-Mastering the Egypt Faction (Beta Up 7/21)
« on: 9 August 2016, 12:58:53 »
Yeah. Specs in my signature.
I have a mobile broadwell processor in my laptop. I'll try to get MG running on that, and provide an update.
This is kind of why I'm asking for people to test out the mod. I don't really like slow computers, so I don't have one.
Edit: Here is the mod benchmarked the same way on an Intel HD 5600(mobile integrated graphics processor). MG is running at 1080p, highest possible settings(except for shadow mapping, because shadow mapping doesn't work). I see the same performance dip, though a bit more pronounced with a lower power GPU, it's still maintaining a fantastic framerate. The fps drop from 106 to 93 fps could easily be undone with reduced settings.
I would like to note, the only lag I've ever encountered in MG has always been CPU/network based, having more to do with mass pathfinding than polycount.
Edit 2: I can and probably will take a stab at reducing the polycount of the sphinx in the near future.
I have a mobile broadwell processor in my laptop. I'll try to get MG running on that, and provide an update.
This is kind of why I'm asking for people to test out the mod. I don't really like slow computers, so I don't have one.
Edit: Here is the mod benchmarked the same way on an Intel HD 5600(mobile integrated graphics processor). MG is running at 1080p, highest possible settings(except for shadow mapping, because shadow mapping doesn't work). I see the same performance dip, though a bit more pronounced with a lower power GPU, it's still maintaining a fantastic framerate. The fps drop from 106 to 93 fps could easily be undone with reduced settings.
I would like to note, the only lag I've ever encountered in MG has always been CPU/network based, having more to do with mass pathfinding than polycount.
Edit 2: I can and probably will take a stab at reducing the polycount of the sphinx in the near future.
86
Mods / Re: Re-Mastering the Egypt Faction (Beta Up 7/21)
« on: 8 August 2016, 22:35:28 »
My performance analysis:
Here's a small stress test "benchmark" album.
I setup a 3x Mega AI x4.9 vs 3x Mega AI 4.9. I let the modded one run for longer, and it reached nearly 1000 concurrent units with still no framerate issues. I took screenshots on empty parts of the map and screenshots over 3 mega bases all mushed together. There's a frame-rate/VRAM counter in the top left. Keep in mind, I'm running the game at 3440*1440(2.5x pixel count of 1080p), which should be why the VRAM usage is that high.
Results: Not much of an impact for me. I had somewhat lower frame-rates with the mod, but there were more units and bigger bases in most of the modded screenshots I have.
Further, I did a second test. I changed the initial unit counts a bit... 10 sphinxes, 15 desert camps, 10 farms, and 10 obelisks. About what you'd expect to find in a giant base. Both factions were spawned in exactly the same map and tileset, with one magic faction on the other side of the map.
Frame-rate difference? About a 23fps drop. From 427.5 to 404.7. VRAM usage increased by around 80MB.
I also underclocked my GPU as far as I can (to 525MHz), and locked MegaGlest onto one CPU thread, then ran the same test. Found a slightly larger performance hit, still running full res and everything.
In other news... the resolution setting in the options menu does absolutely nothing for me.
Here's a small stress test "benchmark" album.
I setup a 3x Mega AI x4.9 vs 3x Mega AI 4.9. I let the modded one run for longer, and it reached nearly 1000 concurrent units with still no framerate issues. I took screenshots on empty parts of the map and screenshots over 3 mega bases all mushed together. There's a frame-rate/VRAM counter in the top left. Keep in mind, I'm running the game at 3440*1440(2.5x pixel count of 1080p), which should be why the VRAM usage is that high.
Results: Not much of an impact for me. I had somewhat lower frame-rates with the mod, but there were more units and bigger bases in most of the modded screenshots I have.
Further, I did a second test. I changed the initial unit counts a bit... 10 sphinxes, 15 desert camps, 10 farms, and 10 obelisks. About what you'd expect to find in a giant base. Both factions were spawned in exactly the same map and tileset, with one magic faction on the other side of the map.
Frame-rate difference? About a 23fps drop. From 427.5 to 404.7. VRAM usage increased by around 80MB.
I also underclocked my GPU as far as I can (to 525MHz), and locked MegaGlest onto one CPU thread, then ran the same test. Found a slightly larger performance hit, still running full res and everything.
In other news... the resolution setting in the options menu does absolutely nothing for me.
87
Mods / Re: Re-Mastering the Egypt Faction (Beta Up 7/21)
« on: 8 August 2016, 19:47:32 »
Besides the destruction animation, the Obelisk has 488 triangles.
Desert Camp: ~2700 triangles
Sphinx: ~3600 triangles
Snakes: In test runs I've had no issues selecting them, I was originally going to add the plane. If it's a notable issue for others, I'll add it in.
Personally, I've encountered no performance issues. If you guys would try testing the mod on various hardware configs that would be great.
Alternatively, we could have an object quality toggle of some sort for very low end hardware, as we can easily include the old models.
Desert Camp: ~2700 triangles
Sphinx: ~3600 triangles
Snakes: In test runs I've had no issues selecting them, I was originally going to add the plane. If it's a notable issue for others, I'll add it in.
Personally, I've encountered no performance issues. If you guys would try testing the mod on various hardware configs that would be great.
Alternatively, we could have an object quality toggle of some sort for very low end hardware, as we can easily include the old models.
88
Feature requests / Re: Possibility to disable the vanishing corpses
« on: 30 July 2016, 18:21:51 »
Hi and welcome to the forum Kenny!
As far as I know, that is limited in the engine. Currently however, our programmers are busy in real life. Titi should be back from vacation soon though.
As far as I know, that is limited in the engine. Currently however, our programmers are busy in real life. Titi should be back from vacation soon though.
89
MegaGlest / Re: Megaglest and Steam
« on: 26 July 2016, 05:58:18 »
If you rely on donations, you have to incentivize people to donate. You have to earn people's money by giving them something they want. There's no way around this Filux. You do less work, you get less in donations.
Also, as I just stated. If you sell the game, this only becomes more important. Now people have invested their money in what you're offering, and it's important to keep customers happy, else they're more likely to leave negative reviews and deflect future customers. You don't have to break your back for your consumers, but leaving them in the dust is not smart, and kills the longevity of your product.
As for Steam comments, you're using your own theory as an example of your theory. That logic does not compute.
I still don't understand what all these theoretical trolls are supposedly doing on Steam. Considering you can buy games, leave bad reviews and then refund them... Why don't ALL games have tons of bad reviews?
That's not to say of course that there are ZERO trolls, and ZERO people who have some sort of bias against free games. Those people exist, but obviously not in the hordes of numbers that you suggest.
If the game is free, incentivizing donation is the best way to earn more money and put up more servers.
If the game is paid, then it's just a matter of money management.
I'm going to assume from your comments that you would like Megaglest to cost money in both locales of availability. I'll support any approach, I just want the damn thing on Steam so we can revive the modding community.
Also, as I just stated. If you sell the game, this only becomes more important. Now people have invested their money in what you're offering, and it's important to keep customers happy, else they're more likely to leave negative reviews and deflect future customers. You don't have to break your back for your consumers, but leaving them in the dust is not smart, and kills the longevity of your product.
As for Steam comments, you're using your own theory as an example of your theory. That logic does not compute.
I still don't understand what all these theoretical trolls are supposedly doing on Steam. Considering you can buy games, leave bad reviews and then refund them... Why don't ALL games have tons of bad reviews?
That's not to say of course that there are ZERO trolls, and ZERO people who have some sort of bias against free games. Those people exist, but obviously not in the hordes of numbers that you suggest.
First about Steam & me: I am a newbie on steam and I always will be because I am trying to avoid it as I canYour loss man.
... and situation in the number of servers will never change much (at least in the positive direction) if it will be still as it is now when Team have to take ~ 3 years of donations to pay for (current, relatively weak) server for 1 year
If the game is free, incentivizing donation is the best way to earn more money and put up more servers.
If the game is paid, then it's just a matter of money management.
I'm going to assume from your comments that you would like Megaglest to cost money in both locales of availability. I'll support any approach, I just want the damn thing on Steam so we can revive the modding community.
90
MegaGlest / Re: Megaglest and Steam
« on: 26 July 2016, 03:33:35 »
That's all doubly true if we sell the game.
91
MegaGlest / Re: Megaglest and Steam
« on: 26 July 2016, 02:03:17 »
So...
-Free on Steam, Free on MegaGlest.org
-Have to rely on donations for upkeep(which will only become more demanding with more players).
+Satisfies desire to keep MG free.
+Potentially much larger player-base gains.
+Equal pricing everywhere.
-Paid on Steam, Free on MegaGlest.org
+Brings in money, pays for upkeep.
+Satisfies desire to keep MG free.
+Potentially larger player-base gains.
-Creates odd customer dynamic, by being asked to pay for a free game. (Could be rectified either with pay-what-you-want, and/or clear announcement that the game is FREE outside of Steam.)
-Paid on Both
+Brings in money, pays for upkeep.
-MG will now cost money.
-/+Lowest potential player-base gains.
+Equal pricing everywhere.
Having been a Steam member for many years, and played a lot of the free games offered, I think the idea that free games are covered in trolls is generally not true. Players are often impressed with what they can get for free, and I find it hard to believe that there's a noticeable amount of people sitting around pissing on free games 24/7. I know at least for myself, I'm much more likely to write a negative review for a game I paid for, because when I pay for something and it's bad, I actually lost something in that transaction. As opposed to a free game, I just uninstall it. There are free games with low ratings and high ratings, and I've run into many paid games with abysmal ratings. Steam's new refunding feature does help a lot on the paid game side of things.
Games like War Thunder, Planetside 2, Warframe, and Unturned have done quite well being F2P.
Regardless of the cost of the game, a small free demo offered both on and off of Steam would help players decide whether they like the game before they invest more time/money into it. Thus, making them less likely to leave a negative review if they don't like it.
Perhaps also a feedback system outside of Steam Reviews, driven by Google Forms(or something equivalent), that would allow people to express feedback without necessarily affecting the Steam rating.
-Free on Steam, Free on MegaGlest.org
-Have to rely on donations for upkeep(which will only become more demanding with more players).
+Satisfies desire to keep MG free.
+Potentially much larger player-base gains.
+Equal pricing everywhere.
-Paid on Steam, Free on MegaGlest.org
+Brings in money, pays for upkeep.
+Satisfies desire to keep MG free.
+Potentially larger player-base gains.
-Creates odd customer dynamic, by being asked to pay for a free game. (Could be rectified either with pay-what-you-want, and/or clear announcement that the game is FREE outside of Steam.)
-Paid on Both
+Brings in money, pays for upkeep.
-MG will now cost money.
-/+Lowest potential player-base gains.
+Equal pricing everywhere.
Having been a Steam member for many years, and played a lot of the free games offered, I think the idea that free games are covered in trolls is generally not true. Players are often impressed with what they can get for free, and I find it hard to believe that there's a noticeable amount of people sitting around pissing on free games 24/7. I know at least for myself, I'm much more likely to write a negative review for a game I paid for, because when I pay for something and it's bad, I actually lost something in that transaction. As opposed to a free game, I just uninstall it. There are free games with low ratings and high ratings, and I've run into many paid games with abysmal ratings. Steam's new refunding feature does help a lot on the paid game side of things.
Games like War Thunder, Planetside 2, Warframe, and Unturned have done quite well being F2P.
Regardless of the cost of the game, a small free demo offered both on and off of Steam would help players decide whether they like the game before they invest more time/money into it. Thus, making them less likely to leave a negative review if they don't like it.
Perhaps also a feedback system outside of Steam Reviews, driven by Google Forms(or something equivalent), that would allow people to express feedback without necessarily affecting the Steam rating.
92
Mods / Re: Low Tech/Feudal (new medieval mod, Alpha 4 release)
« on: 25 July 2016, 03:54:04 »
Is this mod balanced against Magitech/Megapack? Or is it meant to be played against itself?
93
Feature requests / Re: Optimizing Gameplay Suggestions
« on: 25 July 2016, 03:53:08 »
Perhaps get help from EarthBreach on this. I'm spending enough time working on art for mods right now, I don't want to start scripting too.
94
Feature requests / Re: Optimizing Gameplay Suggestions
« on: 23 July 2016, 17:42:46 »
Reasonable.
If I'd thought for 5 seconds, I would've realized that my Blender example proves your point. I've memorized just about the whole keyboard of hotkeys used in Blender, and my entire Blender workflow is pretty much based on hotkeys.
I'd guess we can make the tutorial missions with the scenario system as it is now.
If I'd thought for 5 seconds, I would've realized that my Blender example proves your point. I've memorized just about the whole keyboard of hotkeys used in Blender, and my entire Blender workflow is pretty much based on hotkeys.
I'd guess we can make the tutorial missions with the scenario system as it is now.
95
Feature requests / Re: Optimizing Gameplay Suggestions
« on: 22 July 2016, 19:31:28 »
I really think we should shy away from having a purely hotkey driven interface.
Having icons (located wherever fits best) for each building type (would group same building types, distribute commands evenly across groups), as well as hotkeys that correspond to the visual part of the GUI function, would be the best method in my mind.
I've been playing Glest/MG for years now, and I still find new hotkeys that I never knew about. This isn't great interface design, and is one of the top complaints about older versions of Blender.
Having icons (located wherever fits best) for each building type (would group same building types, distribute commands evenly across groups), as well as hotkeys that correspond to the visual part of the GUI function, would be the best method in my mind.
I've been playing Glest/MG for years now, and I still find new hotkeys that I never knew about. This isn't great interface design, and is one of the top complaints about older versions of Blender.
96
Feature requests / Re: Optimizing Gameplay Suggestions
« on: 22 July 2016, 00:59:06 »
I think 'A' can be taken care of much more easily with Company of Heroes style building buttons at the bottom. No matter where you are on the map, you can access your buildings menus from the bottom right.
97
Mods / Re: Re-Mastering the Egypt Faction (Beta Up 7/21)
« on: 21 July 2016, 12:44:46 »
The Beta is officially launched! (Check the first post)
Been working the last few days to patch up some old animations and finish some texture enhancements. While parts of it are still incomplete, I've remodeled multiple units from the ground up, done partial to full retextures and enhanced some already nice textures. Additionally, I've overhauled the majority of the animations one by one.
While the graphics may not be complete, the gameplay of the faction is fully intact and working perfectly.
For the purpose to seeing how it performs for those of you on slower hardware, I've left my source-resolution(up to 2048) textures in the beta. In the future, I'll be scaling things down to appropriate resolutions, but for now it's going to eat your VRAM. I also haven't re-done the destruction for the obelisk yet, so that jumps from ~360 polys to ~9900 when it dies. Please let me know if that causes any noticeable drop in performance.
Correction: The Obelisk texture is my fault. MG has Anisotropic Texture Filtering now, I'll adjust the model/texture in future updates to stand out more.
(Check the first post)Been working the last few days to patch up some old animations and finish some texture enhancements. While parts of it are still incomplete, I've remodeled multiple units from the ground up, done partial to full retextures and enhanced some already nice textures. Additionally, I've overhauled the majority of the animations one by one.
While the graphics may not be complete, the gameplay of the faction is fully intact and working perfectly.
For the purpose to seeing how it performs for those of you on slower hardware, I've left my source-resolution(up to 2048) textures in the beta. In the future, I'll be scaling things down to appropriate resolutions, but for now it's going to eat your VRAM. I also haven't re-done the destruction for the obelisk yet, so that jumps from ~360 polys to ~9900 when it dies. Please let me know if that causes any noticeable drop in performance.
Correction: The Obelisk texture is my fault. MG has Anisotropic Texture Filtering now, I'll adjust the model/texture in future updates to stand out more.
98
Bug reports / Is shadow mapping supposed to look this horrible?
« on: 17 July 2016, 07:52:55 »
Windows 10
Latest AMD Drivers
Since I've been working with MG again, I thought the shadows looked really screwed up. However, I didn't realize how badly until I switched from shadow mapping to shadow projection.
With shadow mapping on, units are darkened as if there's a shadow on all of them. There's also extremely annoying shadow flickering everywhere. On top of this, the old "negative shadows" problem is still around.
Some screenshots with shadow mapping:
http://imgur.com/a/OD1jc
Some screenshots with projection mapping:
http://imgur.com/a/2kWkq
Latest AMD Drivers
Since I've been working with MG again, I thought the shadows looked really screwed up. However, I didn't realize how badly until I switched from shadow mapping to shadow projection.
With shadow mapping on, units are darkened as if there's a shadow on all of them. There's also extremely annoying shadow flickering everywhere. On top of this, the old "negative shadows" problem is still around.
Some screenshots with shadow mapping:
http://imgur.com/a/OD1jc
Some screenshots with projection mapping:
http://imgur.com/a/2kWkq
99
Mods / Re: Re-Mastering the Egypt Faction
« on: 14 July 2016, 19:32:10 »
Sphinx: Agreed
Farm: Shrunk the bush by 25%, looks more maintained now. The chickens will be animated soon. The flag was there originally, I'm going to remove the teamcolor from the bigger piece of cloth. Besides, I need to show off my looping cloth simulation on that flag.
Desert Camp: Brightened it up a bit.
Obelisk: I got a little carried away, but too much detail is far preferable in my opinion. I'll sharpen the texture, and possible rotate the model 45 degrees. The death simulation is a bit excessive I admit, but it looked so nice in Blender. The crappy texture filtering in MG is the reason the symbols don't stand out visually, the texture itself is quite high resolution.
When I release the beta shortly, I am going to need testing from people with smallish/low-resolution screens or slow hardware to let me know if there are any issues there.
Farm: Shrunk the bush by 25%, looks more maintained now. The chickens will be animated soon. The flag was there originally, I'm going to remove the teamcolor from the bigger piece of cloth. Besides, I need to show off my looping cloth simulation on that flag.
Desert Camp: Brightened it up a bit.
Obelisk: I got a little carried away, but too much detail is far preferable in my opinion. I'll sharpen the texture, and possible rotate the model 45 degrees. The death simulation is a bit excessive I admit, but it looked so nice in Blender.
The crappy texture filtering in MG is the reason the symbols don't stand out visually, the texture itself is quite high resolution.When I release the beta shortly, I am going to need testing from people with smallish/low-resolution screens or slow hardware to let me know if there are any issues there.
100
Mods / Re: Re-Mastering the Egypt Faction
« on: 14 July 2016, 02:16:45 »
Updates!
New Sphinx model (Early WIP)
New Snake (Done)
Farm Improved Model and Texture (Mostly Done)
Remade Desert Camp (Complete with animations and construction model)
Simulated Destruction Animation for the Obelisk
New Sphinx model (Early WIP)
(click to show/hide)
New Snake (Done)
(click to show/hide)
Farm Improved Model and Texture (Mostly Done)
(click to show/hide)
Remade Desert Camp (Complete with animations and construction model)
(click to show/hide)
Simulated Destruction Animation for the Obelisk
(click to show/hide)
